


ania

by js71



Series: Assorted Star Wars Splashes (w/Dai Bendu) [11]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game), Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Dai Bendu, Gen, Jedi Culture & Tradition (Star Wars), Spelling & Grammar, not me thats ahsoka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27392110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/js71/pseuds/js71
Summary: ania: (Dai Bendu) melodyAhsoka stresses and Cal hums.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: Assorted Star Wars Splashes (w/Dai Bendu) [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977589
Comments: 2
Kudos: 78





	ania

Ahsoka looked four seconds away from whipping out a lightsaber and stabbing someone. Rex knew that she had enough self-control not to do it, but she looked like she might cry, at the very least, which was not reassuring.

“What’s up?” He asked because that seemed to be a safe question. Her shoulders tensed, and he tensed as well, wondering how close they were to the lightsaber stabbing now.

However, Ahsoka lifted her chin, staring at the wall, and took in a deep breath, the sound of it shaky and not quite certain. All the same, she set her shoulders, and let the breath out, steadier, before she gestured for Rex to come over to look at what she was working on. The tension she held was still there, but it wasn’t so prominent.

She had a data-pad, and one of those pens that wrote on them. Across the screen, letting that Rex couldn’t read practically flowed, slightly curved lines and swoops and circles that were separate but clearly put together to mean something, even if Rex didn’t know what. It was organized into columns, like some kind of statistic sheet.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she said hoarsely, looking very much like she would cry within the next few minutes, even if she was doing a very good job at staying calm.

“I can’t read that,” Rex admitted sheepishly, and Ahsoka blinked before she seemed to realize something, and used her pen to tap at the screen, over to a blank screen. She started to draw, no, she started to write, a few symbols side by side, maybe six of them total.

“This is tonjaieh,” she said, still sounding not-right, but maybe a bit more comfortable. She traced the first symbol, sounding it out, and writing it below the word, larger, and then adding a Basic spelling of how it sounded on the right. She did the same with the next, and the next, until she’d done all of them.

“What are you doing?”

“Right, um…” Ahsoka went back to the previous sheet. She tapped it with the butt end of her pen, no marks coming up on the screen. “So, this is… in Basic, something like a sense of self? No. Maybe… first something.”

“First person,” Rex guessed, and she nodded. “What is this, verbs?”

She blinked at him. “I don’t know what it’s called in Basic. So maybe? But, this is what I’d use if I was talking about myself, and then this is what I’d use if I was talking about you to your face, and this is what I’d use if I was talking to you about Master Skywalker.”

“Got it.”

“But it doesn’t make sense!” Ahsoka cried, fingers tightening around her pen, into a fist. “I don’t get it! And this is my second language!”

A pause.

“Commander, how many languages do you speak?”

She counted off on her fingers. “Togruti, Dai Bendu, Basic, Shyriiwook, Binary, some Mando’a from my history lessons, and I’m passable in Ryl and Mirialan.”

“Commander, most people only speak two languages, at the most,” Rex said, trying not to sound exasperated with the situation. Because however many languages she knew, it was an impressive number, considering Ahsoka couldn’t actually speak two of them - Shyriiwook and Binary - only understand them, which always made learning a language harder, or so Rex was told by the language-enthusiasts of the GAR. Of which he was not one. Not to mention, she was… Rex didn’t actually know how old she was, but she seemed a bit too young if he was being honest.

“It’s not a big deal,” Ahsoka said, her voice much steadier than it had been earlier. “I know them, I’m just having some issues with remembering which is which. When I talk I know, but when I’m asked I don’t know if that makes any sense.”

It didn’t, but Rex didn’t tell Ahsoka that. He just nodded, clapped her on the shoulder, and left her to her work.

Someone was singing. The tune was slow and the words lilting, rising at the end, with soft whispers and curled sounds. Prauf knew who it was because Cal was the only person who ever sounded like that. And that was only on his good days.

The kid didn’t really have bad days. But some days were better than others, and some were excellent, and Cal only talked in whatever language it was when it was an excellent day. Usually when they were deep inside a ship, far away from any prying eyes or nosy ears, and their situation at the moment was no different, the words echoing around the Separatist ship, pulling Prauf after the teenager.

“Hey kid,” he said when he finally came up beside Cal. The boy looked up at him, smiling softly, but he didn’t stop his song, words passing from him into the air, melodic and soft. A lot of the scrappers listened to music, or sang, in a variety of languages. Cal’s was just one that Prauf didn’t know, one that he couldn’t find on the holo-net, couldn’t identify.

That rang true with a lot of Cal. He didn’t say where he came from. He didn’t say how he’d gotten on Bracca. He was strange.

He stood in front of those message boards, the ones that had the lists of Jedi, watching names go by with a strange, almost detached sadness. When Prauf asked him what he was looking for, alone in a ship, just like they were now, Cal had paused, staring at the cutter in his hands. He’d taken a moment, then sighed, heavily, exhausted.

“They saved my life. They didn’t deserve to die.”

No, Prauf wanted to say, they didn’t. Because even if Cal didn’t say anything, Prauf had worked with him for three years now. He knew a lightsaber, and it had taken years to confirm that was what the cylinder was, without altering anyone to it.

He hadn’t said what he wanted to. He’d set a hand on Cal’s shoulders, instead, and said, “Nobody does. Just hope they know that a lotta us regular people didn’t mind them. Whatever the Empire says, we all know they’re lying.”

Cal had seemed confused.

Prauf tried not to be hurt by that. He did his best to check the lists when Cal did, made it seem like they were just curious. He noticed how Cal turned away from stormtroopers, lifting his hood and curling in on himself, and he adjusted his own opposition so that Cal was slightly more hidden.

Cal was fourteen. He’d been eleven or twelve when the Empire rose when the Jedi were killed. Prauf couldn’t see a way of justifying the death of people like Cal, children and kids. Even if what the Empire said was true, that the Jedi were traitors, Prauf doubted that the kids were.

Or maybe he hoped. He didn’t know anymore, because these days, everyone lied, whether they liked to or not. Cal lied to him about everything, he lied to Cal about knowing who he was. The scrappers lied to the Empire about rates and the Guild lied to the scrappers about benefits and whatever else.

Everyone lied.

And Cal just hummed, letting the incomprehensible words and unfamiliar tune cover the lack of lies that he needed to stay safe. He seemed to be doing alright.

As much as anyone could be doing anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](https://js71.tumblr.com/post/624273937698865152/submit-requests)!


End file.
